


the world's hanging over me, the glow keeps me company

by moonbeatblues



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Character Death, F/F, Firewatch au, i have never seen an episode of supergirl and i will not start now, it's firewatch. it does the firewatch thing, just as with my own life, other than it just works, truly have no explanation for this, watership down is inexplicably important to this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24859936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonbeatblues/pseuds/moonbeatblues
Summary: "Look, we’re not soulmates because we had phone sex in the woods, okay?”"Well, technically, it was radio sex.”"It was non-life-changing, that’s what it was. Look,” she says, and hefts her pack over one shoulder. "I'm heading out. If I get there, and find out you didn’t get on the helicopter when you had the chance, I'll kill you myself.”(a firewatch au)
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 8
Kudos: 89





	the world's hanging over me, the glow keeps me company

**Author's Note:**

> title is from m by florist
> 
> watership down has absolutely nothing to do with firewatch, i just think lena would like it

"Look, we’re not soulmates because we had phone sex in the woods, okay?”

"Well, technically, it was radio sex.”

"It was non-life-changing, that’s what it was. Look,” she says, and hefts her pack over one shoulder. "I'm heading out. If I get there, and find out you didn’t get on the helicopter when you had the chance, I'll kill you myself.”

.

.

.

"Uh— hello?”

She squints and surveys the other tower. Still, silhouetted. A tiny monolith.

There’s no response for about fifteen seconds— enough that she’s about to press and speak again. And then:

"Oh, _fuck_.”

The person keeps the button depressed through the giant, dull sound that follows, as well as their hiss at it.

Waiting for them to recover, she snags the binoculars from the table and peers through them. 

Sure enough, there’s a shape visible in the window of the other tower, the curved slope of someone’s back un-curving as they stand up. The groan they let out is delayed, she figures, by a second or two.

"God, I was worried you were _dead_.” The figure presses a silhouetted hand to their silhouetted head. She puts the binoculars down. "You were supposed to get here this morning— I said I'd wait until nightfall and then radio in for emergency.”

She winces, and lies. "Yeah, sorry, I'm not used to, uh, to being out in the woods like this. Got a bit lost.”

There’s a staticky sound, somewhere between an exhale and a laugh. "Sounds like you picked the wrong job.”

There’s a map on the wall— she’d ignored it at first, but now she takes a moment to compare and sees writing on it, thin red pen, snaking lines, a few circles, some extra labels. The handwriting is unmistakable.

"No, I think I'm where I should be.”

Another half-laugh. "Alright, well, at least you’ve got the radio now, so you can tell me if I need to call someone to find your body.”

"Thank god.”

—

"Why are you out here, anyway?”

"Uh, to look for fires?”

"No, I mean—” She hears a faint squeak, the sister of the one her own chair emitted when she sat down at the desk by the west-facing window. "The pay is terrible, you’re alone the entire season, and there’s no service. It’s like camping, if when you went camping you had to confiscate the other campers’ fireworks. Which, by the way, more of them have than you think.”

She deflects. "A regular travel brochure, aren’t you?”

"Really. Why come out here?”

"I could ask you the same.”

"That’s fair. My cousin used to work here.”

"Yeah?”

"Yeah, Clark Kent, you’ll probably see his name on some gear. He was a reporter back in Metropolis, and he said coming here in the summers cleared his mind. He even had a friend who was stationed in your tower.”

"Oh?” Her hand shakes to keep the button depressed, and for that reason only. "You wouldn’t happen to know his name, would you? The friend?”

"Yeah,” and she will remember this for a long time, the moment things start to fall together, like shuffled cards, one upon another. "Lex, Lex Luthor.”

-

"Weird name, huh?”

—

"Oh, shoot, Lena, I think you might have my binoculars.”

"Oh?” She picks them up, focuses to see, sure enough, the shape of Kara bent over, searching for something on her desks, the floor. "I thought they came with the room.”

"Nope, sad to say,” Kara says, sounding a little breathless. "You wouldn’t mind giving them back, would you? I'd hate to think I brought my bird-watching books for nothing.”

"I don’t know, I kind of like the view. You cut a mean silhouette, Miss—” and she realizes she doesn’t know.

Kara lets out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a squawk, something bright and embarrassed. "Danvers.”

Something prickles in the back of her mind, but she blinks it aside. "Miss Danvers. You gonna give me anything in return?”

She indulges in the last moments of being able to see Kara, watching her cast about her tower in search of something.

"Uh, my scintillating company?”

"Mm. Unconvincing.”

Kara goes quiet for a bit, and when she comes back on it’s tinged nervously. "Oh, well, maybe— you said you brought some books with you, too, right?”

"Sure did. Need something to pass the time.”

"Right, well— maybe I could, uh, I could read to you? You know, since you said my voice was nice.”

She leans against the wall. "So your offer is, in addition to your binoculars, I also give you my precious reading material?”

"Well, when you put it like that, it’s.” The figure of Kara relaxes. "Okay, it was a bad idea, I'll—”

"No,” she says, surprising herself. She plucks Watership Down from her shelf, thumbs over the biggest dogear, old enough the crease in the page is soft. "I'll put them both in the cache by Beartooth.”

"Oh, uh, okay. Great! Cool!”

"Have you ever read Watership Down?”

"No. It’s about rabbits, right? Sounds fun.”

She smiles, and wonders if Kara Danvers does character voices. "You could say that.”

—

"Shit.”

"Yup.”

"Lena, that was not fun.”

"Nope.”

"Wow.” She hears shifting, realizes Kara’s probably lying down, too, or maybe reclined against the wall, pillow behind her head. "You said this was your favorite, when you were a kid?”

"Yeah, uh—” She closes her eyes. Makes a decision. "It was Lex’s favorite first. This was his copy. He gave it to me for my birthday, the first one we had together.”

Kara’s quiet for a moment. "You know Lex?”

"He’s my brother.”

There’s no pause this time. "Oh, fuck, you’re Lena Luthor.”

"The very same.”

She can hear her own pulse in her ears. Surely Kara can, too. It sounds like the death of familiarity, of comfort.

"You know what’s funny?” Her voice is unreadable.

"What?”

"I was supposed to come in for an interview, the day Lex went missing. I got all the way to your building and your secretary told me you’d taken a day off. I walked back out, and saw you on your balcony, and you looked smaller than anyone I'd ever seen before. Like you were the most alone a person could be.”

"I remember,” she says, surprised that she does. "I told Jess to send you away. She’s gotten better at lying since then, thankfully.”

"Lena?”

"Yes?”

"Why’d you really come here?”

If they’re retracing, she’ll make sure they hit the same beats. "Why did you?”

"Clark doesn’t want to work here anymore. He said he’d go crazy, that he’s been through every inch of the woods looking but that he wouldn’t be able to do anything else if he was out here.” Kara sighs. "I still think he thinks I'll find something.”

"Are you looking?”

"Should I be?”

She sighs. "I didn’t get lost, on the way here.”

"That makes sense. I was expecting to have to bail you out really early, if you couldn’t follow the trail to the tower, and it never happened.”

"I could use your help, though.”

"Yeah?”

"A week after he went missing, I got a letter.”

—

"I'm starting to get why he chose here.” 

She takes off her other shoe and lets both feet fall into the water. Upstream, there are the bones of a campground she’ll have to carry back to the tower, but for now the stream is cold and she’s tired.

"You mean Lex?”

"Yeah. familiar terrain, low foot traffic most of the year, sizable populations for hunting when he runs out of canned stuff. Clean water, even. Some of the locations on his map I checked out are perfect for avoiding attention.”

"What, are you thinking about following in his footsteps?”

"No, he—” and she’s not expecting the feelings that well to the surface when she says it. Not new ones, just raw. Like the peel of them has been pulled back. "He said in the letter that he trusted me to run L-Corp when he was gone. That he could only leave because he knew I'd take care of things.”

"That’s not fair of him, to expect that.”

"Well, I was raised to know how it worked. I'd been working in R&D since I got my degree anyway.”

"But did you want it?”

"It worked out okay for me.”

"That’s not what I asked.”

"We were never a family that deluded one another about what was required.”

"It’s not delusion to let someone be happy.” But she’s quiet, like she knows Lena won’t find it convincing.

"It was to us.”

"But it was okay for him?”

"Let’s talk about something else.”

—

"What are we calling it?”

Beyond the valley, she can see the faint, sketchy spire of Kara’s tower. if she squints, she tells herself she can see the twin light of the other radio, cradled in an unseen hand.

"I mean, it definitely has a name already. I could call down to the—”

"No, Lena.” For someone who exists only as audio, to her, and the presence or absence of supplies in the lockbox, Kara manages to wear her heart squarely on her sleeve. She can hear the smile so warmly in her voice it’s like she can see it. That's how Kara exists, in her mind, the sort of person constituted entirely of warmth. With blonde hair, she knows that. "What are _we_ calling it? Not the fire that’ll destroy however many acres, just. The one that looks like this, right now. Our fire.”

"Our fire,” she repeats, without pressing the button. Instead, she pushes it to say, "Did you know my entire family has names starting with L?”

"Really? I thought it was weird it was both you and your brother.”

"Really. It’s not even just that I'd only be able to think of something starting with an L, but I'm pretty sure there aren’t any names left. Lex was already a stretch.”

"Guess it’s up to me then.”

"Guess so.”

"How about the, uh—” her voice gets quieter, trails off, and Lena imagines her scanning the walls of her tower in the dark, looking for something. "How about the Potsticker fire?”

"Oh, god, don’t. It’s bad enough eating our food when I don’t remember what I'm missing.”

"Hey, I've been out here longer than you. I think I've earned the right to reminisce.”

"Not in front of me, you haven’t. At least you’re used to it.”

Kara’s quiet for a long moment. "You know that one place, on Sixth, back home?”

Home, as the name of something they share. Something they’ll keep sharing, even if they never speak again. "Yeah.”

"They always used to give me extra, even if I just called in.”

It’s a shitty radio, and still Kara’s voice floats over like honey. "Can’t say I'd blame them.”

"You ever go there?”

"I, uh, I ordered from there a few times. I’ve never been inside, though.”

"I bet they’d give you extras, too, if you did.”

The image is ridiculous enough that she lets go to allow herself a few seconds of laughter. "No, I don’t think they would.”

"I would.”

She’s alone, and in the dark. There're a million reasons Kara can’t see that she’s blushing, but somehow she thinks she can hear it when she speaks, hand keeping the button pressed in some kind of surprised vice on the radio. "Oh.”

"We can call it something else, though. if it makes you hungry.”

"No, it’s fine. The Potsticker fire.”

—

"Hey, Lena?”

She’d started to fade, takes the moment in reaching for the handset to stretch and sit back up.

"Yeah?”

"I'm really glad it’s you, that’s out here.”

"Me, too.”

"Do you think we would have met, if you didn’t come here?”

"Do you mean if Lex didn’t leave or if I just didn’t get the letter?”

"Either, I guess. Would it be different one way or the other?”

"I don’t know. I didn’t go out much before I became CEO, either.”

"Oh.”

"Maybe we would have done the interview, maybe even if I was still working in the lab. I’d think you were lovely, and I'd think about asking if you wanted to talk over coffee instead, and lose the nerve.”

"I remember seeing you on the news the day you took over, and thinking that I'd never seen someone so beautiful before.”

She says nothing. It feels as though most of her is devoted to the two acts of breathing, mouth open and dry, and listening, almost savagely.

"I was scared to see you. Snapper hates everything I write even when I get the information I actually need, and I was worried I'd just— I don’t know, melt into the floor or something.”

"I think I like this better.”

"Me, too.” Kara sighs, and she feels the force of it pass through her. Acceptance, of what could have been— or rather, what couldn’t— and what is, instead. Devotion to this life, instead of the thoughts and fears of another.

There’s a low, buzzy sort of feeling in her head, in her limbs, that she almost doesn’t recognize. Under the blanket, she presses one hand, cold and shaky, to her stomach, just under her navel, and holds down the button again with the other.

—

It’s awkward, paralyzingly, the day after. Lena wakes up with her mouth tasting like death, and when she’s dumped a sufficient amount of water on her head she starts thinking about how much sound the radio picks up, how close it had been to her face. All the symptoms of being close to someone for a little while and trying to convince oneself solitude is better, once it’s over.

  
  


"Hey,” Kara says, finally, around sunset, while she’s out on the big flat rock in the middle of the lake.

She falls fully on her back and covers her face with one arm, reaching down for the handset with the other. "Hey.”

"I don’t want things to be awkward.”

She really does appreciate Kara’s honesty, in this moment. "Me neither.”

"I want to keep talking to you, I'm just. If it happens again or not, it’s cool. I don’t wanna make conversations be _that_ when they’re not, or the other way around.”

"I think the less you think about what you’re saying as making something happen, and more as just making conversation, we’ll be okay.”

"Okay.”

"For the record, I wouldn’t mind if it happens again.”

"Oh. Great.”

"We’ll see.”

"Sure.”

The first flake of ash falls. She ignores it. 

"So, uh. What are you wearing?”

Kara keeps the button pressed when she barks out a laugh, and it spills over into another. "Good start.”

—

"There’s gear missing from here. He even hammered in a hook for his pack, and it’s not on it.”

"So he left? How long ago?”

"Could have been three months ago, could’ve been yesterday. This place is incredible, we’d never see any smoke from fires.”

"Yeah, that’s Lex,” she says, breathlessly. So few cards are left, and she’s so terrified she knows what’s on the other side of them. "Incredible.”

She glances over to the map, and wishes she hadn’t. One more place to look.

—

"Hey, Lena?”

It’s after such a long silence that she jumps, a horrible jolt that spreads through her limbs in an instant. The paper with the emergency numbers is crumpled in her fist, and she lets it fall.

Kara sounds awful, but Lena’s been holding the handset long enough it’s slick with sweat and she keeps breathing through her mouth, harsh and sort of gaspy, even though outside the window ash is starting to swirl on the air like looping insects, finally free of the earth, so when she says "What?” she imagines she sounds just as bad.

"I, uh, I found him.”

—

"Don’t tell anyone. Please.”

"I won’t,” Kara says, immediately. "Clark is gonna ask, when I get home, but I won’t tell.”

She presses her hand to her mouth on a sob, but it feels like the only one. A violent motion, like a breath taken underwater, but no more. 

"I'm so sorry, Lena.”

"I think— I think I kind of knew, you know? He’d have found me, already. I kept thinking the things in the caches were him, leaving me messages, but he would’ve been smarter about it. He wouldn’t have let you see. He just never picked them back up.”

Kara’s quiet for a while. The sun rolls slow to the horizon, like an iris. "What do you want to do?”

She reaches for her neck, holds her palm there to feel her pulse underneath it. Slowing from a sudden rush, but continuing. "He wanted to stay out here. I think we should let him.”

"Okay.”

She's either not good at grief or too good at grief, because there’s still room for affection to rise warm in her chest.

"Thank you.”

—

"Good night.”

  
  


Kara doesn’t tell her how he looked. Obviously not.

She falls into bed in something of a fugue. The light of the Potsticker fire is beautiful, orange and red like a heart buried in the forest, tossing shadows across the length of her tower, but tonight it’s ghastly.

Behind her eyes she sees Lex crumpled on the floor of some channel in that cave, a corkscrew passage dug into the earth, an unwilling tomb.

She left the radio across the room, charging, but she can hear Kara’s voice, from the other night. Behind her eyes, Lex falls and falls, and Clark stands at the ledge, casting his flashlight out and seeing nothing.

_All the world will be your enemy_ , she hears, but it’s just Lex, speaking to himself.

.

.

.

She reaches the crest of the hill, enough to see the ladder reach the tower all the way from the ground. 

Really, she’s done a valiant job of telling herself that Kara won’t be there. There’s this near-itching thought in the back of her skull, that maybe Kara really is stupid enough to have stayed.

The broad windows of the tower are empty of anyone else, and her heart sinks and rises again in an instant, like something matching the density of water. Still submerged, but not so heavy as to fall to the bottom. She breathes out, relieved and, upsettingly, a little upset, and makes for it.

Her breath comes easier when she’s closed the door behind her, but not for long. She’s almost immediately overcome by the evidence of life, after so long without it.

There’s a bed in the same corner hers is in, but pushed against the other adjacent wall. The sheets are pulled back, left unmade. There’s an indent in the pillow, a lamp still on. On the table with the radio and headset, there’s her copy of Watership Down. She wants to cry.

"Hey,” Kara says once she’s put the headset on— heard the staticky crackle of Lena sighing into it, no doubt. "You’re not mad, are you?”

"No, why would I be?”

There's real regret to her voice when she speaks after a long moment. "I left without you.”

“Kara, I told you to do that.”

"I know, I just— I couldn’t stop thinking about if I'd stayed, what it’d be like to see you come over the hill. taking the helicopter together. It feels like the end of a romance novel, you know?”

She says nothing.

"I know that’s not what you want. Fuck,” and she hears a harsh exhale, "I made it awkward. Here you are, just escaped death by Potsticker fire, and I'm still not listening to you.”

"No,” she says, quickly, and closes her eyes. "No, I was— I was thinking about it, too.”

"Oh.”

There’s a long silence.

"Look, I'm glad you didn’t stay. It’s way too dangerous.”

"But?”

"But I'm glad you wanted to.”

Kara sighs, right into the receiver. "I really, really did.”

"I know,” she says, and fuck, she really is going to cry.

She keeps thinking she can hear the faint blades of the helicopter, despairing when the sound never gets closer, revealing itself to be in her head.

"I'm sorry I said our radio sex wasn’t life-changing. It was.”

Kara laughs, but even through the headset she can tell it’s watery, thin, the ghost of good spirits. "Thank god. I was worried that was the reason you asked me not to stay, that it was that bad.”

"No, it was—” She closes her eyes, tries to summon Kara’s honesty, just this once. "It was. Really nice.”

"See, now I can die happy,” and she can see Kara, cradling the handset so no one else can hear, hair flaked with ash like summer snowflakes and grinning. "Hang on, just gotta tell the pilot to let me down. That’s as good as it gets.”

"Well, hey now, don’t be so hasty,” and she scans the bleary orange sky again, for the sight or even the sound of arriving safety. "It might be even better in person.”

"I dunno. You don’t worry maybe—” and she can hear when real anxiety starts to creep even, even more because she can feel it herself, “—maybe we built the anticipation too high? That you can build this ideal, when it’s just voices, that you could never really live up to? That anything else would just be a disappointment?”

"Well, I don’t know.” She picks up the copy of Watership Down— there’s a makeshift bookmark tucked in the front. A crumpled receipt, from a coffee shop. Noonan’s, it says, above an order, mint tea and a staggering amount of pastries. "Do you think that? About me?”

There’s no room for fear to build— “No,” Kara says, immediately, like it just pours from her. "I don’t think that at all.”

"I think we’ll be okay, then.” Like punctuation, she hears it then, the sound of a helicopter in the distance, starting to circle. She thinks about coffee, about the Kara that drifts from her head to be replaced with one who drinks mint tea instead, somewhere safe and waiting for her, waiting to see how she will be different, too. "I think we’ll be just fine.”

**Author's Note:**

> i'm @seafleece on tumblr, come say hello!!


End file.
